What's Your Color Personality?

Color is sexy, fun, and the most important part of decorating. But it's also the most psychological and elusive part. From numerology to iPhone applications and expert advice, check out all of the different ways of finding your true colors and color personality.

CHROMOTHERAPY

These acrylic nonprescription sunglasses come in nine Life Saver colors, each designed to alter your mood or fix some emotional imbalance. Wear red to jazz up your energy, yellow to make you more positive, blue to calm you down. Do they work? You'll have a colorful time deciding.

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MOOD RINGS

Mood rings were a raging fad of the 1970s, and now — along with the peace symbol — they're back. Do they really reveal your emotional state? We have no idea, but after all these years, it's still fun to slip one on and watch the colors change.

What's in a name? Would you believe a color energy that's a clue to your personality? Maybe you don't. But some numerologists do, and they base their belief about the relationship between numbers, color, and the alphabet on the theories of Pythagoras, no less. Here's how it works: Take each letter in your name and find its corresponding number in the guide at right. Add all the numbers, then reduce the total to a single digit.

ASK AN INTERIOR DESIGNER

"I look at what a client is wearing and what's in his or her closet. An affinity for certain colors runs deep, and it's best to cut to the chase. If they're wearing black, you could be in trouble! Once I know what their color preferences are, I choose a complementary color. Good color schemes always have complementary colors to keep them from being too obvious. A great all-blue-and-white room will have a fillip of another color to set it off — coral or spring green come immediately to mind. Often the complementary color will be from the opposite spot on the color wheel. You can then do variations on it." —Tom Scheerer

"First, I get my clients to react to colors. The key is finding out how they feel in and with a color. I encourage them to go to museums and look at paintings and see what pleases them. I tell them to look at an environment as art, and explore what they feel in that space — happiness, balance, flow from room to room. I never have prejudice toward a color — it's all about the client. I've done spaces in all white, and found that to be as colorful as any other. I don't play with paint chips. A color is very different in a 2-by-2-inch square than in a whole room. The key is to see the color in context of people and their environment." —Alessandra Branca

"I ask clients to flip through my portfolio, which is full of photographs of rooms I've designed. It's divided into two sections — neutrals and colors — and I find that people generally fall into one camp or the other. I also have lots of preassembled schemes of fabrics and paint colors that I keep in little bundles and throw down in front of them. They usually respond quite strongly to colors they like. If all that fails, I have a retail store, and I walk people through it. They can say, 'I like this, I don't like that,' while they're touching and feeling something — it's a more natural way of figuring out color preferences." —Phoebe Howard

ASK A COLOR CONSULTANT

"Three things guide us — the people who live there, the spaces themselves, and geography. The white you'd make in California is not the same white you'd make in New York City. If we succeed, color isn't the first thing people notice when they walk in — it's just part of a total realization and gets absorbed into the atmosphere and emotion of the space." —Donald Kaufman, Donald Kaufman Color New York; donaldkaufmancolor.com

"Naturally, I survey the surroundings, the vistas, the architecture. But then I always ask people how they want to feel in a space, because color is such a powerful healer. It can transform your emotional life for the better. Isn't that what life's all about?" —Ellen Kennon, Full Spectrum Paints; ellenkennon.com

"My first conversation isn't with the client, it's with the house: What's the fenestration? What does it look onto? How high are the ceilings? How large are the rooms? What's the flooring? Is the overall style Georgian? Contemporary? Mediterranean? Modern? All these things lead to a mood, an atmosphere. And I don't jump from mood to mood. For me, the satisfaction comes when doors are open and you see pieces of wall relating to other pieces of wall relating to hallways relating to larger spaces. There should be a continuity that feels like a single voice." —Scott Flax, Architectural Color Consultant, Santa Monica, CA